


Exit Music

by ASignificantWhisper



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Bipolar Disorder, Break Up, Explicit Language, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post 6x12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 22:12:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7407109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ASignificantWhisper/pseuds/ASignificantWhisper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you have to leave the destruction to begin the healing process.  </p><p>Eventually, what's meant to be will always come back together, but intensely better than before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exit Music

**Author's Note:**

> Up all night working on something I've had in my brain for months now. If you can guess the title of the song, what scene it was used in - comment on it below. ;) Hint : The band's name is the title of this fic too, because it's fitting. I obviously take no claims over the name. :)
> 
> I was in the love with the backdrop, the scenery that took place with that song. It's what made me realize how much I loved Shameless, the characters, Ian and Mickey. I felt like everything was gonna be okay, you know? It gave me my escape. I saw myself in Ian, felt calm watching Mickey. That's why I'm so devastated to the show's downfall. It's because it offended me personally, took away pieces of me. I know that might sound stupid/not make sense, but it's early in the morning and I'm emotional from writing all night. I hope this is good. It might be a mess, not edited as good. I tried hard to proofread, but I'm tired, so like I said, there might be some tiny mistakes. :( I usually correct them when I proofread again, lol. ( I'm my own nit picking critic) Oh fuck, I'm rambling right now. 
> 
> Okay, anyways.... This is a break up fic. It's not a happy ending, but it's not awful, either. They both know they need time. It's it for now, but not forever. Cause' I just can't do that. These boys were my endgame on the show. <3 The POV's switch back and forth in this as well. 
> 
> Comments and kudos if you liked are MUCH appreciated! Find me on my tumblr : wroteclassicaly.tumblr.com

The walk feels exhausting, somehow nowhere near enough. He wants to run, chase the sunrise until his lungs are screaming at him. Take the man he knows will forever be where his home is-with him. It'd be in his ideal world, his fantasies with or without taking the meds, to interlock his fingers with the guy. He'd trace a pattern delicately by a rough thumb across the knuckle ink. They stood for so much, were a part of so much that drew him to this older beauty.

_Beauty...._

He laughs outloud. How can he not? That man would kick his ass up and down Chicago for even thinking of calling him **_'beautiful'_** , but he sombers over the humor, knowing it's fact trumping fiction. There's no one that has ever been as breath taking as his former flame. There won't ever be anyone in possession of eyes so blue you can practically swim in the color. A blue that seems to compliment every fucking season, every time of the day.

Some things, no matter how hard you try to bury them, convince yourself of their credibility being a false, toxic façade-you can't. You know certain things with a certain precision. Your heart overlaps your head, guiding you with a gut instinct that-yes, this is how it's going to be. It's what it has been since it started. You feel this way about this person, and your primal instincts shout out that there's no longer any room for argument, your mind a played you a fool for trying to fight nature. You can continue to starve from denial, but you'll always lose out, one way or another.

And he lost.... Self-sacrificed his sanity, choked the chains that held him to the love of his life because he thought he was doing the right thing. He let his numbness guide him into a false sense of judgement. Then as his head cleared, his excuses finally slipping down the Southside sewage with the rebound fuckhead-that's laughable he was even able to convince himself he was happy with-it was too late. His blue eyed flame wanted nothing more to do with him than he did his incarcerated homophobic father.

He wanders in to a prolonged flashback, riding on a cheek biting cool wind, to how he was trying to figure himself out in the midst of his family chaos, years back. Loving boys and not girls, not like Lip did. It stirred him alive, steered him where he wanted to be. He was himself, he figured it out after a while trying to play out that he wasn't into what his brother was. Skirts, chests. Revelation clasped him on the back. He was a gay teenaged middle schooler. _No, maybe even before. Something else...._

On that little league team. He'd felt it then, immediate attraction to a pair of blue eyes in a uniform like his own. Not a scrunchie wearing, screaming cheerleader on the other side of the fence that his brother was flirting with. He rode the excitment the cussing kid brought about by being so bold. His guts in a disarray from something other than the raw Spaghettios he promised Lip he could eat cold for the last pop rocks packet. The little stocky boy with strawberry blonde hair flipping everyone the bird, then marking the baseball base with the most grandest of gestures. His lips are impassioning a smile. _Yeah, then._

He looks down at the ice crunched beneath his boots, scattered across the walkway. It looks so secure on the outside, but it breaks apart by force. It's a falsehood no one can ever be sure of. A fitting metaphor. Winter started everything for them, now it's here to accompany the close.

Looking up, he's pummeled by ice cold wind that's a mere featherlight breeze. It could very well be in slow motion for his boderline air supply that's now stalling, sputtering meaningless words around and around in his lungs. **_Mickey_**   approaches. Red hair blows, black hair takes to the slight wind. Blue eyes meet green. Mickey lets out a parched huff, muscles in his throat swallowing a bobbing breath. _Fuck, he looks good._

Mickey flicks his cigarette across the frozen water, watching the filter tumble onto the ice, stuck, bright orange refusing to burn out. Poetic justice that fits their story. Morning sky provides a vibrant backdrop, a too beautiful setting for this to happen in, yet it's meant to be that way. Dramatic, beautiful. All both men do is settle in parted stances and look around each other.

Ian knows this is it right now, this is final. And they have to be okay with that.

Mickey is stopped short, feet away from him. It hasn't been like this in so long. Quiet, no hostility left when they're this far apart from each other. It's silence, growing into a realization that some things can't be fixed the way you want them to be. They need a mold for the glue that pieces any parts back together, which has to be manufactured away from the sight of destruction. It just has to. Ian's fingers are too constricted in his gloves. They're burning his skin like small bee strings. How can everything be so bone chillingly cold and grinding his bones to a heated ash beneath these layers of clothing? Should he speak first, is a question that comes to his mind and fades not seconds later.? _Can't speak_. Not right to caress the air with a shaken tongue. He doesn't deserve the first word or the fucking last. Middle ground meets.

Every nerve, all the insecurities slashing at his insides slosh right back into him, boiling violently through his throat, crushing his ability to speak. He unravels at cheap threads, might as well be naked. Stripped so bare. He's never let anyone see him this way, not like the blue eyed man who can't look at him yet, either. He's a kid again, a middle child. In love with a closeted, dirt caked Mickey Milkovich. His head is shrieking at him that he's the dirty one now, tainting Mickey in as many horrible ways as Mickey's father Terry had physically wrought across his son.

But it was Ian himself who had taken Mickey down by his heart. Broke his spirit every chance he got. Mickey had felt safe with him and Ian ruined it. He punished himself and Mickey by an untimely implosion. Now he's without an umbrella under the falling debris.

"Can come over here, man. Not gonna push you in or anything like that." Mickey's voice is low, hollowed out.

 _He's tired._ Ian is no stranger to that tone. He's a current employee of the exhaustion assembly line. He can't find it in him to make even one joke about Mickey drop kicking his ass into the frozen ice. He'd let himself sink, let it all wash him clean. By Mickey's hand it would work. Like a sword seeking revenge. His shoes resemble  weights, sinking him where he needs to be to maintain breaking apart, making this harder on Mickey then it already is. If he can keep Mickey Milkovich from any more pain, a goddamn splinter on his behalf - he'll do his damndest.

"You should." Ian starts, walking next to Mickey, their bodies radiating that accelerated electricity, that pull.

Ian's eyes close, he wonders if Mickey's are closed too. Being here, like this. Side by side, even if they are.... going to. He swipes a material covered hand across his runny nose, crinkling it from a stray escaped hair, courtesy of the glove. When he's brave enough to face to his left, Mickey is already watching him. He's not panicked, not geared to battle out blame. He's smiling softly at Ian.

Ian never believed much in physical heartbreak, not until he met Mickey Milkovich. He'd gladly endure all of the times the guy stepped on his, shredded it, to have the last year to do over again. _Not right._ He would do it again even if he didn't have a time machine, sans fucking Mickey over all those times. Because being with Mickey? There's no place on earth like it. Being let in by Mickey, being fucking held by Mickey. The Gallagher place was no longer Ian's home the moment Mickey set foot into his life.

Ian's heart breaks for whatever time he looses count of at that smile. It's more than he hoped to have from Mickey. He's forcing himself to curl an unsteady wrist over his cheek to try and maneuver the tears from his eyes. His chest is shaking, smacking his heartbeat against his back, biting out pieces of his ribcage so he's an immobile mess. Mickey is smiling a different kind Ian is cautious to. Pained. Dank.  _He's ready._

"Your giant ass would probably crack open the whole lake anyways. Plus, I ain't breakin' parole. Sick of lookin' at orange shit. Orange jello, orange jumpsuits."

Ian's tied down by the caustic notion that Mickey hates the color orange. Svetlana calls him orange boy. He's a bad thing now, a miserable reminder. More poetic justice, right? "Orange me." Ian tries to get it out quietly, more to himself, to the scenery.

"What did you just say?" Mickey sounds like someone's sucker punched him into speaking a pre-meditative sentence. His voice is vocally battered.

"Makes sense, I guess. I can see how it would," Ian retorts, solemn, closing off despite bested efforts.

It's Mickey that circles his back, lifting him out of the internal bath water his brain sucks him under, away from that tilting cliff inside his mind.

"If you think that's true then you really do deserve to be suffocating under the goddamned ice, Gallagher."

There's no fever behind it. Only tender grief that coats the morning.

"Didn't mean to make it about me, or insinuate... Fuck, Mick, I don't know how to do this." Ian is exasperated, rolling his shoulders, bruised by winter's frost.

"Step one is admitting." Mickey attempts a faltering joke, his mouth opening to let his tongue click between his teeth, his entire jaw working against the motion. He swipes a thumb across his bottom lip, watery coughs come to follow.

"I'm fuckin' scared, Mick." The words come easy to him, free falling like the forecasted snow flakes will.

He's done. Over being a liar, finished lying to himself. This is the last chance he'll get in god knows how long to actually tell Mickey all the things he rehearsed in his head so he wouldn't forget not one of them. Cased silence glazes him and Mickey within its surroundings. No birds greeting the morning. No loud cars in the distance. No hustle bustle from the city. There's a yellow glow peeling back a few inches of ice across the water, spooned in a huddle with gray puffy clouds, strips of blue sky dusted in gold patches, fading out dawn's pink hues. _All going._

"I'll never forget how fuckin' scared I was when I realized I loved you." Ian stares point blank, snapping his attentions in a zoned focus.

Mickey's lips are red from the weather, cheeks pink, eyes so wildly mind-bending. He moves his head once, twice, that compliant thumb obeying, halting mid-way to drop back down at his side.

"Was right after you left for the army. Left me with how fucked up I felt tryna make sense of the shit. Mandy knew though. Got this look in her eyes. Pissed me off, man. How she just...." Mickey's lips part to gulp in air, this time his thumb returns to scrub at his reddening nose.

"Guess when you started goin' off the rails, I went right after you."

When he left. When Ian abandoned his problems, his hellish loathing for reality, backing away from Mickey, his family, right into his manic depression's open arms. How could he have? Would anything be different if he had stayed? This time, he climbs his lamenting emotions, freeing himself from all things he never told Mickey, ready to tell him now.

"It was a lot of times, probably. When you came after me over Mands, when we were face to face for the first time during... when we fucked.. had s-sex, or made love. I called each time different. I didn't tell you, but I did. Like when we did it soft, or face to face, side by side.  Then it was stuff you did, shit you said. I'd get this funny feeling. Even little league I think I felt it then."

Mickey's eyes are wide, filmed a glossy clear to highlight that gorgeous blue.

"I can think of so many fucking times where I felt like I knew that that's what it was supposed to feel like with someone when it went that deep. Lip knew I loved you before I said it to him, maybe before I even knew I did."

"Fuck, Ian...." Pinched, narrowing words from Mickey provide Ian more energy to tell him.

"You weren't the only scared one, Mick. I stepped off. Checked out on us because of this fucking disease, because I'm fucking bipolar. Not my fault, never yours. But I didn't see that. I saw Monica and Frank 2.0. Things were different. But I took all the shit for granted, didn't I? Now look where we are."

Deep sighs graze Ian's ears. "Sometimes we have to step off the edge to know that we need to come back, man. And you and I, we've fuckin' hulk smashed through rock bottom. Even hit each other through it."

"We shouldn't have. The last year when you were trying to help and I hurt you because I was being a pussy, Mickey, you're not fucking trash. You're so fucking good, Mick. Goddammit, why didn't I tell you?!"

Ian's shouting, his throat burning. Mickey's closing in his perpherial vision.

**~*~**

Mickey can't go back to this. Not right now. It's all bleeding out, raw, sore. It doesn't matter how much he needs Ian, how much Ian needs him. This isn't something either one can mend by a good confession and a fuck. They need this, but they can't have that. He's spreading his fingers, taking out another smoke, lighting it, his eyes linger across Ian's features. Short, red hair shown off by the light of day. Freckles dotting that creamy skin, huddled against their owner's flesh to escape his winter red stained cheeks. _He's beautiful._ He breaks Mickey down again, one last time. Things don't make a lot of sense when your heart stomps over your head.

A second nature Ian Gallagher just brings out in him.

"Maybe we'll be echoes," Mickey says, surprisingly understanding all he means behind it.

Ian's a part of him, has pieces Mickey won't ever get, nor want back. It's not only Ian's name inked into his skin. He did that for a reason, placed it there where it rightfully belongs. That won't change. Ian's nodding in agreement with a retorting ' _yeah, maybe we will.'_ And the cigarette smoke doesn't hurt as much going in this time.

He's got parts of Ian. He'll keep them safe. He's with his ginger too. They shadow each other in ways first loves, big loves, can't shake. Any one before, during, after, it's empty.

He passes the smoke to Ian whom accepts with a grace that bewitches Mickey. His lips suck on the filter, the smoke slithering through his nostrils. Mickey has always liked the way Ian's smoked. Any time during the day. Those fingers flicking a lighter, getting to Mickey in ways he could come untouched by. It wasn't just that, though. Mickey can think of a dozen times where he's been half asleep either post fuck, or simply out, and he'll hear how Ian breathes in, breathes out when he's smoking. It's comfortable. He'd taken on a new hobby, rolling over on occassion to kiss Ian's mouth, share the cigarette's bittersweet taste. Nicoteine and Ian, his branding addictions. Blow backs with a joint, however, were followed by Mickey arching his back into Ian, encouraging him to fuck him harder.

Rush hour piles mountains across Mickey's brain, his lids close to block out the sun's rays, his hand untangles his fingerless gloves off, shoving the articles into his coat pocket. Ian doesn't question Mickey edging down his right hand's glove, linking their fingers together. It's warm palms and cold fingertips.

"Jesus, I can't breathe," Ian cries, a crackling quiver shaking his tone.

Mickey's thumb leaves his smearing print over every inch of Ian's hand he can get to. His tongue lolls around his mouth, top to bottom, his teeth catching his lower lip. He starts losing it is when he bites down hard. There's a vulgar copper damp on the tip of his tongue.

Ian is laughing through his tears after what feels like forever passes between the two and their shared cigarette, a throaty sound that warms Mickey up like a good coffee featuring a shot of Jack Daniels-combo.

"You didn't do it," Is what Ian replies.

"What?" Mickey asks, pegged with confusion.

Ian swerves a little, squeezing Mickey's hand for momentum. "Cut my tongue out if I kissed you."

Mickey harps on laughter, but what comes out first is sorrowful, all there. "Maybe I shoulda."

It settles. Day is getting louder, becoming more real. Both are plagued into every mean thing they said to one another, lashed out with, all the fists trying to solve problems, unsaid things that might have made a difference, first kiss, to the kisses in between and to the end, each roll of their hips combining thrusts when they connected the best way they knew how. Fighting, leaving, smiling, being, holding. Like pages in a fast novel flipping vividly that blinking back the tears is impossible to do. Mickey lets Ian's hand go, grasping his left side where Ian had nudged him with the tire iron. He can feel it there, fresh in his mind, push of the metal, rush of the memory. The blood is crusty, cold on his chapped lips. Too much is making him dizzy. Here they go. They're going.

Anger seethes Mickey by surprise. He dreams about throttling Ian Gallagher by his ratty coat collar, chucking him into the river for tearing him open again. He's rearing, watching Ian start to hypervenilate, balling fists swaying back and forth. Madness evaporates.

"I'm so sorry, Mickey. I'll love you everyday. I love you. I'm so sorry, Mickey."

Mickey's head tilts, his axis spins, launching him forward, chest to chest with Ian. He cradles Ian by the nape, his other hand brushing unsteady fingers across the chilly ear, down Ian's cheekbone, holding his neck there. Their forehead's clink together, bones protesting at the pressing smack.

"Shh," Mickey interjects, not letting Ian go. "Shh." His own voice crumbles, he's sobbing, weaving into Ian by gravitational bend.

"Mickey, please," Ian whimpers, nothing else left to do.

Mickey isn't sure how, won't ever know in the future, most likely, if you ask him about it, but he opens his blurred eyes, Ian a snotty, cried out mess. He scratches along Ian's neck in that way he knows soothes the red head. "Ian, open your eyes."

Ian does so without question, his limp arms raising from their dormant position to hold Mickey's own neck on both sides. Their glances are languid, solid, crashing them together. It's Ian who moves it with first initiation, covering Mickey's swollen, cut lip with his two, sucking gently at the small wound, trying to heal Mickey from there. He's still crying, it's intensified. No question, no blow. Moisture mingles, caresses the lovers in their powering moment to add to many that proceeded it. Salty tears, nasty ass runny noses, red, bumping in a togetherness with tilting heads. Mickey prys Ian's mouth apart, licking at his teeth, meeting his tongue instantaneously. He's sure Ian's tears get into his mouth at some point, mixing with eveything hot, wet, home. _Ian Gallagher._

The cold is hastily brushed off to a break for more beams of sun through the clouds. It jerks them apart. Their foreheads move for leeway, breaths tasting one another, drinking the winter air in. Mickey's brows raise, then lower. His teeth bear together tightly, letting a hissed _'fuck'_ through. Ian's trying to cease his quaking distress. It's useless. They collapse. Mickey nods a few times, mashing himself against Ian's body with more strength than Ian's ever remembered him having used. He's pressing his lips to Ian's forehead, their eyes meeting. Blue on green.

"I love you, Mickey. Always," Ian pants, stills. "Will you wait...?" He sounds so broken, so lost.

Mickey gives that smile to Ian one last time for the time being, and he finds his voice. "Ian, what you and I had, what we have, it made me free. Don't fuckin' think for a second I'd take it back. Good times, bad, crazy shit. Loving you is something I'll never stop doin'." Mickey makes the spurring decision, moving his coat and sweater apart, the ink settled across, over his heart. Ian touches it for the first time the moment it comes into view. Mickey grips his hand, Ian grips his wrist, bringing the inked knuckles to his lips, prolonging a kiss to each one until they're stolen from him. Mickey cups his neck like before. "Yeah, Ian, I'll wait."

The cold seeps back in the further Mickey gets away from him. "You think of me, yeah?"

"Never stopped, Mick."

 They don't stop watching each other with pursed lips, clouded vision. Ian harshly wipes his eyes clean to see Mickey finalize it by turning and walking from his line of his sight, hands coming to his face.

Ian's aching, craving to claw at the ice to break open his skin. He wants to stomp his boot into the icy ground below. His throat is tightening, throbbing for deprived breath. He sees the horizon break across the water completely, and he is....

_Still._


End file.
